Contesting a will

[Spendysis]

Does anyone have any experience of contesting a will

its very early days so the will isn’t yet available online but I’ve had a horrendous few years with dsis financially abusing dm who I have recently found out has passed away but I am pretty sure dsis will of coerced dm to change her will dm pretty much confirmed it.

I have emailed a highly recommended solicitor and her PA called me today and advised they could help and my situation fits numerous ways to challenge this. For me it is not about the money it’s about the truth coming out about what dsis has been doing and has obviously lied about me and what has happened as family friends are nc with me now for dh it is about the money

They have asked me to forward as many documents that I have and this is the problem I don’t have much hard evidence like bank statements etc opg had suspended dsis as poa and had applied to cop to revoke lpa appoint council deputy and restore the estate but i don’t have whatever evidence they had on her only a letter advising of their actions. I have email correspondence that I had to get ss to confirm that dm was in a care home as dsis didn’t tell me. I have emails regarding an equity release dsis wanted to take out where they advised she had pretended to be dm at first then said it was her wanting money to tide her over till she gets what she’s due - inheritance they didn’t proceed but have the land registry details she went with another company i know she spent it on her own house but without bank statements I can’t prove it. I know she is living in dm house and has been doing structural changes to the house while suspended as poa and have Facebook posts of her new catio posted by the builder but that’s about it in actual hard evidence

although I do have emails I’ve sent to opg ss and dm bank when I raised concerns

I was advised to email everything I have and timelines and my version of events the solicitor will review it and then arrange and appointment to discuss it plans to proceed if I choose to for the initial cost of £1075. I mentioned this to dh and he said no we are not paying that. I can pay it anyway and he won’t be arsed but am I mad for at least paying this and having the meeting I can always decide not to pursue it

Contesting a will is rarely worth it unless the value of the estate outweighs any potential legal fees. The costs soon mount up.

What is the estate worth?

It can get really expensive to challenge a will, even with what you think would be clear evidence.
It doesn't sound like you have a lot to be certain about, you havent seen the will?

How many thousands are you prepared to spend to prove 'something'

House £600k any savings long gone as used by my dsis before and after she had poa including my dc trust fund dm set up when he was born I get it I am probably fighting a lost cause

I think it's worth paying an initial fee to speak with a solicitor. What your sister has done sounds very dodgy to me. If your Mum was on cognitive decline she may not have compos mentis to change her will. If it was a do it yourself one without a solicitor involved even more dodgy as your sister could have pressured her to change it or even wrote it herself. You will need a copy of latest will and old will and details of when your Mum started cognitive decline. I think you'd feel better if you knew you had tried to get it resolved rather than letting it go if you would always wonder.

Do you think your mum lacked capacity when she made the will? If so then this is your best chance of contesting the will. But there has to be medical records and witness statements to prove this. In your position I would pay the solicitor’s first fee and get the ball rolling.

If she has poisoned your mums mind against you so mums changed her will that is potentially fraudulent calumny there was a successful case on this recently.

Definitely worth seeing a specialist in this area. It will be you having to prove it so ensure you have the stomach for the litigation it’s not fun. Also risks swallowing the estate in legal fees.

It is very costly and lengthy to contest a Will. Have you got the funds to do this for a long period of time?

“I’ve had a horrendous few years with dsis financially abusing dm who I have recently found out has passed away”

Are you saying you didn’t have a regular relationship with your mum?

Tread carefully OP.

Even if your mum had diagnosed dementia you would still have to prove conclusively that, on the day and at the time she signed the will, she did not have capacity. That’s all but impossible to do.

Read up on past cases, the only winners are the lawyers. Don’t let them reel you in with false hope.

Walk away knowing you are the better person. Your sister is a thief.

I have some personal, not professional experience of a similar situation. What leaps out at me is that you are not contesting a will. How can you be when you don't know what the will says? presumably it hasn't yet been through probate (or only very recently) otherwise it would be a public document and you would know what is in it.
I wonder how you found your well recommended lawyer? I have nothing to say about the quoted cost....it doesn't sound unreasonable for an initial opinion but I am kind of dubious about their saying (if they did say) that you have a case to contest the will when you don't know what is in the will.
I genuinely cannot take a view beyond what I have said except to tell you what the very sensible solicitor who we got advice from in a similar situation. He laid out our options but said to remember that the law can be a bottomless money pit.

There are two things going on here.

Firstly, you think your sister has abused her POA. That is separate from contesting the will.

Secondly, you think your sister may have convinced your mother to change her will. However, as you haven't seen the will, you don't know that.

These are separate matters. Contesting the will does not give you a way to get back any money your sister has taken using her POA. And, as the previous poster says, you need to see the will before deciding if you want to contest

Did you not have a conversation with your mum before she passed away about her wishes and what she wanted to happen to her estate?

Yes I have experience.

Family members contested the will.
The case went on for some time. It was incredibly distressing for everyone involved and divided us. We have never recovered many years on.
Finally, it was all done but the legal costs took out around 90% of the value of the will. There was nothing left.
No one won, no one benefited except the solicitors.

I am aware I need to see the will first. It is not available online yet. If it hasn’t been changed like I suspected it has then I obviously won’t be needing the solicitor

I contacted opg and cop to advise of dm death and they advised me to contact as solicitor which I did to explain the circumstances and they advised me if the will has been changed during the time dsis was financially abusing dm to forward them any documents I have including a copy of the will and they will review it and the price for this

I am aware poa and a will are different things and I was asking if anyone had any experiences on contesting a will due to similar circumstances to mine

OP I have experience in so far as I have been on the other side. Not what you are asking I know but here are my thoughts.

My mum changed her will after my dad died to leave her estate to me and exclude my siblings. She did this for reasons such as I cared for her while she was sick/end of life but also because she had always been much closer to me than my siblings. My siblings now don't speak to me because of 'the money' so they clearly blame me for what happened. They did not contest the will because my mum changed hers using a solicitor. She also included a letter to be sent to my siblings to explain the changes to the will. She also told them before she died (upon which time my siblings stopped talking to me).

My mum did all this of her own free will. You can disagree with her decision but it was her decision. Luckily for me my mum had a scan for dementia not long before she died and she didn't have it. We did this because she started saying lots of weird stuff towards the end (this was about 3 years after she changed her will). The police also spoke to my mum as I think her bank had alerted them to the fact she was paying me money to care for her and also gifting me money to buy things. The police had a good chat with her (when I wasn't there obviously) and said she was very 'sharp'.
She looked very frail but still knew her own mind at that time.

Despite all this evidence that my mum acted of free will (hiring a solicitor, speaking to the police, including a letter with the will, telling my siblings) my siblings are not talking to me. I think the point I am trying to make is in their case I believe they are so hurt by my mums actions that they have displaced their anger onto me. I mean why else would they not be speaking to me when there is so much evidence that my mum changed her will of her own free accord.

Emotions run very high at times like this and I suppose what I am trying to say is I have siblings who now 'blame' me and don't talk to me for something I had no control over. I am guessing it is too difficult to blame a dead person or to face up to being cut out of the will (which is of course hurtful) so they are displacing their anger onto me.

It does not matter in so far as we were not close and I never heard from them much anyway (I usually don't even remember that they are not talking to me).

Ironically when my mum told me what she had done I actually said to her several times 'are you sure you want to send them a letter and change the will because that will be the last thing you ever say to them' and she was adament she did. She was angry because they refused to help look after her so she was punishing them I guess.

I suppose what am saying is you are very understandly upset just now and grieving the loss of your mum. If she has changed her will it will be very hurtful and it is natural to try to avoid the pain of this rejection by your mum by blaming someone else. If you have evidence (in writing) or proof of evidence that your mum was co-erced then of course by all means challenge the will if it has been changed. From your post you sound emotional, angry and perhaps not thinking as clear as you could (which I totally understand).

My advice would be
Check the will to see if it has been changed. Then see if you have any evidence of wrong doing. Then get advice from a very reputable lawyer. What people have said is correct. It will be stressful and the lawyer fees will eat up a ton of it. Check to see if she did an letter to explain the changes to the will.

The saddest thing about my story is my siblings decided I was somehow to blame and stopped speaking to me. They never gave me a chance to decide what I would do when the estate was settled. In other words I might have offered some of it to them. It is not very nice to be accused of robbing your own mother when no such thing occurred. Unfortunately I don't think even offering money to my siblings would have fixed things as it would not have stopped them knowing their own mother cut them out of her will and that is what they are angry /hurt about.

If I was close to my siblings before all this I would be very upset with being cut off. As it is it makes literally no difference to me as I very rarely heard from them. Are you close to your sister. Is the relationship worth losing?

I'm very sorry for your loss and for all your anger and upset. I hope you manage to resolve it to your satisfaction.

I had POA for my mother although it was set up at the same time as she changed her will (I was not allowed in the room or building when she was changing her will as the solicitors wanted to have a big chat with her and check her competency I guess without me there).

I hope my post does not make your more upset.

right. If it was me, and yes I have been in similar circumstances, I would not be paying a solicitor ANYTHING until I had seen the will. I would also expect an honest solicitor to say this. I am still not sure why you consider the solicitor to be well recommended (don't answer if you don't want to) because contesting wills while not hens teeth rare, is definitley not a usual occurence for people who have lost a relative or close person. I am assuming that your sister is the executor and if they aren't, do you know who is? because they are your next line of enquiry.
Either way (and I am sorry to say this) whether or not you go ahead, the situation will be painful. I would urge you to think hard before you add problems with your husband to the pain, although from what you say, you may have another problem there.
I should also point out that legally a changed will means nothing provided it is written and witnessed correctly and there is no evidence of co-ercion or abuse...and sadly from my own experience, evidence mean just that and not what you are sure happened. Don't let your understandable hurt and anger lead you into making bad choices.

@MelCanBeMyLethalWeapon my dsis cut me off when I politely confronted her 3 years ago over helping herself to dm money she had stopped paper statements being sent out the bank confirmed this was done by the banking app dsis had on her phone and was using to transfer money to her own account and refused to go ahead with an equity release on mums house. Dsis had been itching to register the poa with the bank I was equal poa and I mentioned during that conversation that both poa get notified when transactions are made so I believe she convinced dm to remove me. Dsis excluded me and made it very difficult for me to see dm and didn’t keep me up to date on dm health she hasn’t even advised me she has died

she did this so she could continue to help herself to dm money and probably tell everyone she is entitled to the inheritance as she did all the care in the last few years which she did as i wasn’t told about anything I was very involved until dsis blocked me. She didn’t even tell me when dm was in a care home I had to get ss to find out for me

she convinced dm to take out an equity release dm wouldn’t of known what one was if it wasn’t because of dsis she used the money for her own house that she then had to sell as she couldn’t pay her interest only mortgage and has moved into dm house renovating it like putting a catio on while suspended as poa and that obviously wasn’t in dm best interest

The opg had suspended her as poa for both finances and health and had applied to cop to revoke lpa and appoint council deputy and restore the estate so they must of had concerns as well

there is an awful lot more examples but i believe she isolated and coerced dm who was vulnerable and abused her position of poa for her own financial gain

i will see what the will says and go from there

@godmum56i have advised i obviously need to see the will first and I won’t be paying a solicitor anything until I have seen it. Someone i know uses them professionally and recommend them as well a numerous recommendations when I asked on the local facebook page under a name change with no outing details

my dsis will be the executor she was on the original will anyway

There is no problem with dh he agrees if it the will has been changed to pay the amount he thought that was just for an appointment not them reviewing documents like a copy of the will before the appointment

You’ve got a good pile of papers - it’s worth booking a probate solicitor for an hour and going with a list of questions.

As everyone says, coercion is impossible to prove and that’s why prac everyone in your position loses. You’ve also got the problem that you’re not entitled to a bean regardless of what DM promised for 60
years.

Law is expensive. And it doesn’t work for justice in this area, only for big fees.

See what the solicitor says.

oh sorry. As I understood it, you said "He's only interested in the money" and he had disagreed with your taking it further.

She's stolen your dc's trust fund? Maybe you need to get the police involved then.

My DDad and his sister contested my Granny’s will, which disinherited them and left everything to the other sister. It hinged on whether the witnesses had witnessed her signature on the will. The witnesses were neighbours. They were adamant that they had never witnessed my Gran’s signature, and the signatures on the will did not tie up with their handwriting. The solicitors declared the will void and used an earlier version that they had drawn up, which left everything to the three children.

Which left equal amounts to all three children.

but you had witnesses and factual evidence which is not the same.

^
Agree not the same situation

She didn’t even tell me when dm was in a care home I had to get ss to find out for me
So did you go and,see your mother in the care home then?

It sounds that you cut all contact with your mum and blame this fully on your sister. Maybe your sister stole from her and coerced her to change her will, or maybe your mum felt abandoned by you and that's the reason for the change of will.

How are you going to prove it's the former rather than the latter?